French mayor retreats after suspending fasting Muslims

In all fairness I can't call him a cheese eating surrender monkey because an English mayor would have been too hampered by political correctness to even make the attempt.

Aug 1 (Reuters) - A French mayor has revoked the suspension of four Muslim camp counsellors following an uproar after he said they could not work properly because they might be weakened by their all-day fasting for Ramadan.

Muslim groups threatened to sue the Paris suburb of Gennevilliers for discrimination for recalling the four after an inspector found on July 20 - the first day of the Muslim holy month - that they were not eating or drinking during the day.

Lawyers for the counsellors, who had accompanied children from the suburb on a town-sponsored stay at a summer camp in southwestern France, said they might also take the issue to a labour court.

Muslim leaders presented the case as an issue of religious liberty, while the town's Communist mayor Jacques Bourgoin insisted his concern was only for the safety of the campers. Bourgoin said he revoked the suspensions because the public uproar over the issue prevented the calm discussion of safety issues that he planned to take up again later in the year.
"This has been blown out of proportion and we can't discuss it calmly," he told Europe 1 radio on Wednesday.

The mayor's office said in a communique on Tuesday evening that the counsellors' contracts specifically noted they had to make sure both themselves and the children they monitored were regularly nourished and hydrated. Bourgoin said the town required that because two children were injured in a traffic accident two years ago when a fasting Muslim counsellor fainted at the wheel of the minibus in which she was transporting them.

"This is a discriminatory act," said Abdallah Zekri of the French Muslim Council told BFM TV. "France has religious liberty, it is a fundamental freedom and it must be respected."